The present invention relates to an automated system and method for assessing the functional ability or medical condition (or medical ability) of an actor. More particularly, it relates to a system and method that utilizes multiple sensors and/or interface device(s) to gather functional ability and/or medical condition data relating to the actor, assess the gathered data, and report the assessment and gathered data to persons interested in the actor's welfare such as a caregiver, including alerting those persons to potential emergency situations. Potential domains include in-home monitoring systems, eldercare, and workplace environments (including hazardous work environments) to name but a few.
Elderly people commonly suffer from diminishing physical and/or mental capabilities. Similarly, younger persons suffering from certain maladies (e.g., stroke, disease, etc.) will invariably lose their ability to function independently. In these and other cases, attending physicians (or other caregiver) need to be apprised of changes in the patient's functional ability or medical condition to provide early detection and possible prevention of acute medical conditions.
Currently, gathering of potentially applicable information relating to a patient's functional ability or medical condition is done only as part of a direct, face-to-face interview between the caregiver and the patient. During these periodically-scheduled sessions (e.g., monthly), the caregiver asks the patient a series of questions and generally observes the patient for a short time (e.g., one hour or less). Unfortunately, while a drastic change in the patient (as compared to a previous session) can be identified, it is difficult at best for the caregiver to obtain a true picture of the patient's mental and/or physical capabilities, and in particular to notice slow or incremental deterioration in either facet over time. For example, a typical line of inquiry will relate to the patient's sleeping patterns. For most patients, the response to such a question will inherently be based upon their recollection of the immediately preceding one or two days. Thus, a patient experiencing gradually worsening sleep patterns, but who happened to have a restful night the evening before the caregiver meeting, may report that everything is fine. Further, it is difficult for patients to accurately recall and/or gauge their functional abilities over extended periods of time (e.g., more than a few days). Also, many patients, especially elderly individuals, become nervous or confused when answering questions at an unfamiliar location remote from the patient's home such as a caregiver's office. Again, this problem greatly impedes the caregiver's ability to properly evaluate the patient's actual mental and physical capabilities.
To overcome the above concerns, efforts have been made to develop in-home devices that record information potentially related to a patient's physical and/or mental capabilities. For example, automated pill dispensers are available that record times at which medication is dispensed. In theory, this information can be viewed as being indicative of the patient's mental capabilities in terms of remembering to take prescribed medication. Of course, actuation of the dispenser does not necessarily mean that the dispensed medication was ingested by the patient. Further, and perhaps more importantly, this information presents only one small piece of an overall assessment of the patient. That is to say, numerous other functional/medical condition information is required to accurately assess the patient's abilities, especially as part of a long-term assessment. More technically advanced devices, such as an in-home pacemaker data transmitter, are similarly limited. Thus, while individual devices are available to record information potentially related to a patient's functional abilities and medical condition, direct caregiver interaction/patient interviews are still required, and result in the deficiencies described above.
Alternatively, the patient-caregiver visits can be scheduled on a more frequent basis or a live-in caregiver can be provided. While this may facilitate accumulation of more data points, either approach is quite costly and relies upon the availability of trained personnel. Unfortunately, in most situations the enormous costs and/or lack of qualified caregivers prohibits implementation of either approach.
Periodic, face-to-face patient interviews, while well accepted, are simply inadequate for caregivers to reliably assess the physical and/or mental capabilities of a patient. This is especially true where a long-term assessment of gradually diminishing abilities is of importance or where precursors to certain health emergencies occur (e.g., symptoms of stroke (or fall) often appear several days before the stroke itself) and the ability to identify these symptoms in advance of the event could allow a caregiver to reduce the potential effect of the event. Similar concerns arise in other domains, such as persons working in a hazardous environment where knowing the worker's functional ability could alert others as to potential problems (e.g., exposure to hazardous gases, fatigue, hypoxia, etc.). Even further, actors or workers in less rigorous environments (e.g., assembly line or warehouse) are also susceptible to diminished functional abilities that, if identified in a timely fashion, can be quickly addressed. Unfortunately, other than face-to-face interviews, persons concerned with actors in these environments do not have access to highly relevant, day-to-day information. Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for automated generation, storing and assessment of multiple data sets from multiple sensors relating to certain functions and/or medical conditions of an actor.